Science furthering the lifespan of the human race has been at the core of scientific research since the dawn of time, organ donor-ship, organ transplants, advances in medical technology, like in vitro fertilisation and cloning, what seemed like science fiction to people of the past are now commonplace, everyday affairs for those living today.
Yesterday’s science fiction becomes tomorrow’s science fact. What if we could genetically alter babies to be immune to all diseases, what if we could breed them to be super intelligient, physically strong or talented?
What if people could choose the traits of their babies like a character in an rpg videogame? Would this improve the human race or cause it to become more homogenous than it already is, would individuality become a thing of the past? It can be argued that humans play god every day, that even saving a human life with an organ transplant or just a life saving operation is not natural and is against a plan designed by a higher power.
Is humanity going too far with its scientific progress, is the power create other humans, power reserved only for the god of men? Or is it part of the human design to be curious about the creation of life, is it natural for people to want to overcome the bonds of mortality and push the limits of humanity to the very bring, trying to become god? Can human beings really be relied upon to draw a line in regards to ethics, can they be trusted to use cloning for good as opposed to nefarious means, such as war or profit or both?
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) Claims that every new technology has its good and its bad points, light and dark side. Every ‘good technology’ created to benefit man can be used in a bad way by an evil person that does the opposite. If you take a good technology and use it in a good way then it’s different but that is in a perfect world. The opposing view to the scientific view that life is a chemical process is the view of life as a ‘miracle’. The nature of scientists from this view are that they are not to be trusted, they are viewed as immoral, they play at becoming god and this will lead to inevitable disaster.
On the other hand cloning and genetically engineering farm animals, has its obvious necessity in that it is useful in terms of ‘growing’ more food. Dolly the sheep was the first cloned sheep but we could have entire industries created on the backs of cloned cows for meat, it could solve world hunger. If we could clone vegetation, decreasing the time in which it took to grow or even genetically enhance it so that it could survive in harsher conditions, possibly turning baron wastelands into fields of crops.
Dr Alan DeCherney (Chief Editor Journal of Fertility and Sterility) - The idea is that scientists should only do research that will definitely benefit mankind, only do perfect research, any other research is pointless, scientists should in theory never do research that isn’t necessarily going to benefit mankind. If that were the case we’d all still be living in caves. There would be no scientific progress if scientists didn’t do research even if they weren’t one hundred percent sure it would eventually benefit humanity.
Human cloning will never be done in countries like America because there would be too much on the line it would destroy the career of the doctor/scientist who attempted it, they simply have too much to lose, the risk is too high but PGD is used today.
PGD is a type of in vitro fertilisation where abnormal genes can be isolated and removed, the goal of this is to purge genetic abnormalities from family trees, like hereditary diseases or birth defects. The obvious worry is that this could be used to create designer babies. What is initially used to prevent genetic diseases could be used to change the babies eye colour or used in other such aesthetic ways that could damage individuality in society. Culturally it’s interesting because say you could choose the sex of your child that could have an enormous impact on the population and it’s really not a decision that someone should have because it’s a delicate balance.
Look at china for example, in Chinese culture women are seen as almost worthless and female children were at one time killed or abandoned. If it were up to them to choose what sex their child would be they would undoubtedly choose a male child. Since to reduce the population growth of the swelling country there was a one child policy introduced if everyone chose that one child to be male, the whole species would eventually die out as there would be no females.
There have been genes linked to happiness, addiction, risk taking, homosexuality all of which with the use of PGD could be altered or removed. Can you imagine what impacts this would have especially in terms of homosexuality as we live in a time where there is much controversy around that subject and only in the last hundred years or so has it actually been legalized.
If PGD was used to remove the homosexual gene from a baby there is no doubt that America and other extremely fundamentalist religious countries would be first in line to have the gay gene eliminated. This in theory could lead to a genetic holocaust, where gay people actually die out, killed off by the religious prejudices of the coming generations. It’s a frightening thought, that a whole race of people could be eliminated by the choices of an ignorant populace let alone that there are still people that think homosexuality is evil or wrong in some way.
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) Worries that this science will be corrupted for the purposes of eugenics in an attempt to improve the human race by selected breeding. This entails the replication of characteristics that are deemed to be superior to a particular society (for instance blonde hair and blue eyes for the Nazis) for an entire population. Hitler wanted to use cloning as a way to strengthen the Arian race and saw Jewish people/gay people/gypsies/The disabled as genetic pollutants which had to be expunged to purify and improve their race.
Hitler judged himself an expert in judging what was superior human traits and wanted to eliminate people that corrupted those traits, which lead to a selected breeding program and the deaths of six million Jews. This is obviously a great example of how a science like this can be misused or misconstrued. Science is knowledge, its technology, hip replacements can be misused. Cloning and PGD is not good or bad people are good or bad. If used by unscrupulous corporations it could be very profitable to create perfect children.
Rabbi Gabriel Elias - Anything to save a human life or improve the quality of life is a valid use for genetic research. You’re enhancing life not duplicating it, not creating it. In this circumstance god can be accredited as helping your endeavour to conquer nature but not in corrupting it by creating life.
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) says that genetic engineering is essentially solving the symptoms of a disease as opposed to the root cause, which is poor diet, pollution, chemicals in our food supply, with every problem you solve you create another.
Rabbi Gabriel Elias - In vitro fertilization and PGD is helping a man and a woman have a child with god’s help it’s not making a person from scratch, you’re not encroaching on the territory of god. Can there be a technological advance that cures disease but does not affect what it means to be human or step on the toes of god? Genetic theory or gene therapy is there to help cure disease.
PGD is very stressful, all the drug taking and injections, so it’s hard to believe that anyone would grow through all the strain of in vitro fertilisation just to have a blue eyed baby but this is merely a stepping stone. This does not mean that in the future there will not be an easier method and also this doesn’t rule out religious fundamentalists choosing to go through all this suffering to eliminate homosexuality.
Also PGD cannot be used to create a gene that doesn’t already exist in the parents, so if the parents want a musical child or a child with certain personality or skill, if they lack that gene, it cannot be produced. This process can only be used to choose which genes in the parents genetic makeup can be used, they cannot implant genes that are not there.
In conclusion the difficulty and the parameters of PGD does not take away from the fact that although it is simply knowledge and it’s depends how it’s used. The world is not evolved or developed enough to fully understand what traits are desirable or to use the choice in a way that does not cause future problems for our species.
Gosden, Roger (200) Designer Babies: Science and the Future of Human Reproduction | Paperback
MacKinnon, Barbara. (2000) Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy
Lee, Ellie (2002) Designer Babies: Where Should We Draw the Line?
Science Channel (2013) Who's Afraid of Designer Babies?
Smith, Wesley. J. (2013) The Coming Public Conflict Over Human Cloning.
